Thursday, December 31, 2009

After Google and Yahoo released their search trends for 2009 almost at a similar time I guess its no surprise then that the social networking giants Facebook and twitter do the same to compete with each other.

Twitter and Facebook both have individually released data which showcases the trends of discussions and status updates across both their platforms.

As you can see from the above trends showcased by facebook while twitter statistics seem to be more granular with terms across verticals Facebook’s data is more broadbased in terms of what was discussed. So as expect Facebook Apps come first followed by FML this is because people post their farmville and mafia wars status on their status update. No.3 on the list was Swine flu and followed by celebrity deaths and family, movies etc. The interesting point is that twitter features at no.10. While Facebook doesn’t feature at all in Twitter’s trending list. Seems like 2009 was the year of twitter.

It will be interesting to see how these both start working with data to build insights into expected consumer behavior. So while Google is a database of intentions Facebook and Twitter are one of actions (Most people say I did this or I did that) while in google you search for things you want to do whether a movie or music you want to buy. In essense one can easily track what people did and how they felt using social media. Interesting insights to say the least. What is your take on the above trends? Which one do you like? Facebook or twitter?